NITI Aayog to Set Up Artificial Intelligence Research Center in India

The Vice-Chairman, NITI Aayog, Rajiv Kumar addressing media after the 4th meeting of Governing Council of NITI Aayog, in New Delhi on June 17, 2018. The CEO, NITI Aayog, Amitabh Kant is also seen. (file photo). Courtesy: Press Information Bureau

India’s NITI Aayog, Intel, and Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) have announced a collaboration to set up a Model International Center for Transformative Artificial Intelligence (ICTAI) for developing and deploying AI-led application-based research projects.

This initiative is part of NITI Aayog’s ‘National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence’ discussion paper that focuses on establishing ICTAI in the country through private sector collaboration.

Based in Bengaluru, the Model ICTAI aims to conduct advanced research to incubate AI-led solutions in three important areas – healthcare, agriculture, and smart mobility.

It will bring together the expertise of Intel and TIFR and aims to experiment, discover and establish best practices in the domains of ICTAI governance, fundamental research, physical infrastructure, compute and service infrastructure needs, and talent acquisition.

Through this collaborative effort, the Model ICTAI is chartered to develop AI foundation frameworks, tools and assets, including curated datasets and unique AI algorithms.

The objective is to develop standards and support policy development related to information technology such as data storage, information security, privacy, and ethics for data capture and use.